


let that number be someone else's milestone

by folignos



Series: the disposable generation [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 06:23:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2841221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/folignos/pseuds/folignos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andrew Shaw joins the marines when he's eighteen years old and too dumb to know better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let that number be someone else's milestone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brandonsaad (createadisaster)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/createadisaster/gifts).



> so this is in the same verse as _all my edges are exposed_ , but is a completely standalone piece.
> 
> large chunks of this are based on generation kill, because apparently i can't escape that show. i kind of feel like i should turn it into a competition. first person to find all the references wins.
> 
> the final part of jenna's nine piece holiday present. i think the final word count is just short of 21k. i'm insane.
> 
> come find me on [tumblr](http://toewses.tumblr.com)!

Andrew Shaw joins the marines when he's eighteen years old and too dumb to know better.

Brandon Saad speaks perfect Arabic and says "yes sir" with the same, barely there inflection the rest of them do, and yet Andrew's never heard it sound quite so much like "fuck you". He smokes hand rolled cigarettes with long fingers as they lie under their Humvee together and mentions John Grisham and Nietzsche in the same breath, soft voiced, hard eyed. Andrew meets him when Brandon is three days shy of twenty years old and knows that he is probably going to die before he has the pleasure of turning twenty one.

-

_Observe everything, admire nothing._

That's the word passed down from the LT. He's talking about what's on the other side of the Humvee doors.

Andrew watches the shift of Saad's knees as he hits hour four of standing in the turret through three days of sand and grime on the rear view mirror.

He meets Bolly's eyes in the mirror.

They both pretend they weren't looking at the same thing.

-

Technically speaking, Saad is their CO. He's so green his boots still give him blisters, fresh out of OCS with a textbook salute and perfectly pressed khakis.

This is his first tour.

It's Andrew's second. Bolly's fourth.

Their last one is so recent, Andrew can still feel the sunburn itching at the back of his neck.

-

He meets Bolly in Afghanistan three weeks into his first tour, during a firefight.

He drops into position next to Andrew, butt of the rifle locked into his shoulder, and he tells Andrew to fucking shoot.

Andrew does.

It's his first official kill.

Afterwards Bolly grins, salutes, shakes his hand. There's a smear of gun lube under his cheekbone. He's wearing what has to be two weeks of stubble. Bolly catches him looking, glances around, and says, 'Fuck the grooming standard.'

It surprises a laugh out of Andrew.

-

Captain Seabrook hand picked both of them for Blackhawk platoon. There's a quiet pride in the way they’d saluted him, Andrew thinks.

Sitting in a stony grave, spitting tobacco into a plastic bottle in the grey dawn, Andrew thinks about what would have happened if he'd declined the offer.

-

Iraq is beautiful.

That's what really fucks with Andrew, at the end of the day. The sunset is a deep, deep orange that melts into peaches and yellows, silhouetting the Humvees against it.

The reporter takes a picture. Andrew flinches at the sound of the shutter closing.

-

Saad smiles a lot. Andrew wonders if he knows he’s doing it, sometimes.

They pass the body of a little girl in the road, and Saad doesn’t smile for a long time after that.

-

Their orders keep changing.

Andrew sees movement out of the corner of his eye. Saad tells him to shoot anyone that could be armed, so he shoots, hits a couple of camels by accident. Maybe hits one of the guys with the camels? He doesn’t know.

-

Andrew falls apart by inches.

There is blood on his hands and a boulder in his sternum.

There's a harsh, crackling sound in his lungs that he can't escape from.

There is a dying child lying fifty feet away with two bullets in his gut. Andrew unslings his rifle and leaves it in the sand.

He overhears Bolly calling him a stone cold, dead eye killer, and his stomach lurches.

He throws up behind a berm and curls a plug of tobacco under the crease of his lower lip until he can no longer taste the bile.

-

Saad keeps trying to talk to him.

Andrew keeps swallowing caffeine pills and singing country music. Keeps cleaning his gun, every time they stop for a break.

-

‘It’s not your fault,’ Saad says one day. He’s driving, and Bolly’s in the turret, and Andrew’s supposed to be getting some sleep, but he’s mostly picking the green skittles out of a packet and staring out of the window. ‘You were acting on my orders.’

‘They were bullshit orders,’ Andrew says, recklessly. He spits out of the window.

‘They were,’ Saad agrees. Andrew… wasn’t expecting that.

‘I still followed them,’ Andrew says, sullen. ‘I should have known better.’

‘It’s what we do,’ Saad says. His eyes don’t leave the road. ‘Marines make do, right? We make do with shitty food and no sleep and bullshit orders.’

Andrew nods.

Saad turns, smiles at him. ‘Get some sleep, Corporal.’

-

Orders come down from the Major one night, when there are no stars and it’s blacker than Andrew’s morning coffee. Andrew’s on watch, jumps when the radio buzzes.

‘Godfather wants you to send out a patrol into the fields,’ the static-y voice says. ‘We think there are insurgents in the long grass.’

Andrew stares at the radio for a full thirty seconds. ‘Blackhawk one?’ The voice asks. ‘Come in, Blackhawk one.’

‘Copy that,’ Andrew manages, and clicks the phone back into place. He shoves at Bolly, always a light sleeper, and then turns to wake up Saad.

‘I’ve been asleep for forty three minutes,’ Bolly says, mournfully.

Andrew relays the information to Saad, who scowls. ‘What the fuck?’ he says. ‘Gimme the radio.’

Andrew steps out of the Humvee to stretch his legs. Saad’s arguing with Godfather’s vehicle. ‘With respect, sir, that particular mission is too dangerous, it’s my professional opinion that we should wait until we have some light.’

Andrew doesn’t hear the response, but Saad slams the phone into the receiver, puts his head in his hands.

‘He wants me to send four men out to almost certain death, to investigate a tank we’ve already confirmed is abandoned and useless.’

‘Welcome to the USMC,’ Bolly says, snide, reaching for his dip.

‘Who are you sending?’ Andrew asks.

Saad looks at him. There’s barely enough moonlight for Andrew to be able to pick out his features from a foot and a half away. ‘I’m not,’ he says. ‘He’s sending a different company. One with actual night vision equipment,’ he says, bitter.

Andrew climbs back into the Humvee slowly. ‘Go to sleep, Corporal,’ Saad says. ‘I’ll take the next watch.’

‘But I still have another ninety minutes of my shift,’ Andrew argues, but Saad just takes the radio off him, and ushers him out of the Humvee and into a grave. Andrew doesn’t sleep.

-

There is a bomb in the only patch of greenery in one of the towns.

Bolly decides he’s going to fix it.

‘Hey, Shawser, go grab the bomb disposal kit from the Humvee,’ he says, dropping into the crater softly.

‘You can’t be fucking serious,’ Andrew says.

‘Now, please,’ Bolly says, and turns away from him to start looking at the bomb.

Andrew runs for the Humvee and counts down from ten in his head.

Bolly hasn’t been blown up by the time Andrew gets back, so he counts that as a win, drops to his stomach and hands the kit over to him.

‘Get out of there, Brandon,’ Saad says, coming up from behind them. He sounds angry, but tightly controlled.

‘Kids play in this garden,’ Bolly says, turning his back on Saad.

‘I don’t give a fuck,’ Saad says. ‘I will not have you blowing yourself up to maintain playtimes in Greater Baghdad. Get out of the hole.’

Bolly stands with his back to them for a few seconds before turning around, defiant. ‘LT--’ he starts, but Saad interrupts him.

‘Now, Sergeant.’

Bolly’s hands are clenched into fists. He drops his gaze, and starts climbing out of the hole. Andrew reaches out to give him a hand up, but he ignores it, stands up straight in front of Saad. He has a couple of inches on him, makes Saad look up at him. It’s blatant disrespect.

‘Bolly,’ Andrew says, surprising himself. ‘Let it go, man, come on.’

‘If that blows up,’ Bolly says, low and cold. ‘It’s on you.’

And then he turns and stalks off by himself, leaving Andrew and Saad and the bomb.

Saad deflates.

Andrew thinks about saying something, half reaches out for him.

He turns and walks away instead.

-

Bolly and Andrew are fixing the radio when they hear someone coming up behind them.

‘You’re right,’ Saad says. ‘If that bomb goes off, then it is on me.’

Bolly snorts, but doesn’t look away from the radio. He calmly strips one of the wires, twists it together with another cable.

‘Anyone that dies as a result of an order I give is on me,’ Saad continues. Andrew flinches. ‘But I also have twenty two men that I need to bring home with me. That’s my priority right now.’

Bolly says nothing. He strips another wire.

Eventually, Saad walks away.

-

Andrew finds them both later, flush against the side of a building, in the shadows. Bolly’s hands are fisted in the front of his uniform, creasing it.

Saad’s hands are at his sides, unthreatening. He’s talking, low, insistent. Andrew can’t hear them.

They don’t see him when he leaves, slinking away into the night.

-

Andrew’s not stupid. He knows about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and he knows Bolly knows about it too.

It doesn’t stop them from barricading themselves in an abandoned office of a cigarette factory and fucking on the desk until Andrew’s bruised and spent. Hasn’t ever stopped them before.

In Andrew’s defence, neither of them have ever asked.

-

They’re playing football when Duncs absolutely fucking levels him, knocks him six feet across the field, winding him.

When Andrew was a kid, he used to fight a lot. Still does, he guesses. He jumps Duncs when he turns away, and gets elbowed in the head for his troubles.

Three guys have to separate them in the end, and Andrew has blood in his mouth.

He spits it in the sand as he storms away.

-

He ends up on the roof of one of the lower buildings, chain smoking and nursing his throbbing head, flicking ash over the side.

‘I’m sorry,’ a voice from behind him says. Andrew doesn’t turn around, takes another drag from his cigarette. It pulls at the scab on his lip.

‘Why?’ he asks dully.

Saad drops down next to him. Andrew offers his smoke on a whim, doesn’t bother hiding his surprise when Saad accepts.

‘You’ve killed people,’ Saad says. Andrew feels his face go blank. ‘I never wanted to have to give that order.’

‘You’re in the wrong line of work,’ Andrew mutters, taking his cigarette back, tapping the ash off.

Saad hums in agreement.

‘I don’t believe in this war anymore,’ Saad says, suddenly. Andrew passes the cigarette over and says nothing. ‘I don’t know what I do believe in,’ Saad adds, quieter.

‘I believe in you,’ Andrew says, without really meaning to. Saad looks at him, sharp.

‘Why?’

Andrew shrugs. ‘I dunno. You’re about the only thing I do believe in, out here.’

‘I think I’m leaving,’ Saad says, after his next inhale of smoke.

‘The Corps?’ Andrew asks. Saad nods.

Andrew finds himself surprised. ‘You’re a good CO,’ he says, and stubs out the cigarette butt. ‘You’d be better off in the States.’ He chooses his next words carefully. ‘Some people aren’t meant to go overseas. Some people are.’

‘Like you?’ Saad asks. He sounds genuinely curious.

Andrew shrugs. ‘Already got plenty of blood on my hands.’

Saad’s face twists at that.

Andrew gets up, dusts off his pants. ‘I should head back down before Bolly sends out the search party. He pretends he doesn’t care, but...’

‘Are you and he…?’ Saad trails off.

‘Are you asking, LT?’ Andrew asks.

Saad stares for a moment, and then slowly shakes his head. ‘No. No, I’m not.’ He pauses. ‘Brandon. Call me Brandon. Not around the men, obviously, but...’

‘Brandon,’ Andrew says. It feels weird in his mouth.

Saad smiles at him. It looks hopeful.

Andrew leaves before he has to think about it.

-

So Saad leaves, and Andrew goes back to Iraq. Bolly comes with him, like always, and they lead a team together, which is. New.

They have a new CO, too.

He gets his hands blown off two weeks in, gets the steering wheel column of the Humvee straight through his sternum. He’s dead before the medic can even get out of his own Victor.

For the second time in as many trips overseas, Andrew has a fellow Marine’s blood on his face.

-

Two weeks after he gets home, Andrew gets promoted.

It's only Brandon that stops him from throwing it back in their faces.

‘They’re making me a Sergeant,’ Andrew says over the phone. He’s sitting on the windowsill of his shitty apartment in Chicago, blowing smoke out of the window.

‘Oh,’ Brandon says, careful.

‘I don’t want it,’ he says. Bolly comes home, slamming the door behind him.

‘Close the fuckin’ window, it’s freezing,’ he says, unwinding his scarf. Andrew flips him off and curls around his phone more, and he and Brandon talk a little more until he has to go.

‘See you soon,’ he says quietly, flips his phone shut, and glances over at Bolly, who’s sprawled on the sofa, looking at him.

‘What?’ he asks, defensive.

‘You know you sound like you’re ass over tits for him, right?’

Andrew colours. ‘I love you,’ he says. It sounds harsh and untrue. Always does, Andrew thinks.

Bolly shrugs. ‘Sure. But you love him too.’ He holds out his hand and pulls Andrew into him.

'You do too, don’t you?’ Andrew says. Bolly just kisses him, edging on mean, like always.

-

DADT is repealed and Andrew goes to Pittsburgh.  The two are only a little bit related.

-

Brandon’s in college. Engineering. He’s got a job waiting for him when he graduates. Andrew knows all of this. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do until Brandon opens the door in soft grey sweats and a thin t-shirt.

He steps up, winds his hands through Brandon’s hair, longer than he’s ever seen it, kisses him in the doorway.

‘Oh,’ Brandon says, when they break apart.

‘Come to Chicago,’ Andrew says. ‘When you graduate. Come to Chicago.’

‘What about Brandon?’

Andrew shuffles his feet. ‘He feels the same. I think. I hope.’

‘Oh,’ Brandon says again, smile dawning. ‘Okay,’ he says, and then repeats it. ‘Okay.’

‘You’re gonna come?’ Andrew asks.

‘Yeah.’ Brandon’s smiling properly now, genuinely, face lighting up. ‘I’ll come to Chicago.’

Andrew kisses him again, and lets Brandon pull him inside, kicking the door shut behind him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> for reference, the dude who gets his hands blown off is a true story. yeah.


End file.
